


On the Inside

by warheart



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Depression, Friendship, Isolation, Kidnapping, M/M, Rape, Rape Recovery, Sexual Abuse, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:47:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warheart/pseuds/warheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Room AU, where Harry and Louis form an unlikely relationship in the most desperate circumstance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based off the book "Room" by Emma Donoghue. It deals very explicitly with kidnapping, sexual abuse including rape, and graphic violence. If any of this might be triggering to you, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS FIC. I love you and value your mental health! <3 If you would like to follow this story, please let me know and I'll happily give you a summary of the chapter(s) you need, or even provide a fic with the graphic bits cut out!
> 
> Also, I'm looking for a beta and Britpicker! If you'd like to help me out, please comment or message!

Louis knows there was a time in his life when he wasn’t alone. He remembers his mum and dad and baby sister. He had a green bicycle, and he knew how to ride it without stabilizers. He went to primary school the September after he turned four, and he remembers his teacher Miss Hagan. She had red hair and a warm smile.

It was warm on the day he was taken. The trees were starting to grow leaves and the breeze blew his fringe around his eyes. His mum said he needed to get a haircut soon, but Louis laughed and said, “No mummy, I’m going to keep growing it forever and ever and ever,” and his mum had said, “But then I’ll have to call you Rapunzel instead of Louis!” and he had laughed even harder.

The car was white. The man was impossibly tall and strong. It only took a moment before Louis was locked in the trunk. It was so dark. He could see light coming in from holes near the side. He kicked and punched but the walls were too strong; they held him in. He screamed. Music turned on from the inside of the car, loudly. The man drove forever, until the light disappeared from the holes. Louis cried for his mum. He was cold and thirsty. His muscles hurt from lying in such a tiny space.

When the car stopped, he was sleeping. He didn’t hear the driver’s door open or close. He only woke up when the trunk opened to bright sunshine. Louis stared at the man. The man stared back. Then he said, “If you scream again, I’ll hurt you.”

Louis kept his mouth shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first few chapters of this fic will mostly be spent on establishing the relationship between Louis and his captor, so please be patient! The pace of the story picks up in a bit x Also, I used a website to actually make a plan of what the room looks like. If you’re interested in seeing it I can show you.

It wasn’t long before he brought Louis a telly.

Louis still isn’t sure why he got it. He doesn’t remember ever asking for one. The only thing he wanted was to go home to his mum and dad and baby Lottie. He asked for that a lot, in the beginning. 

After the trunk was opened, the man reached in and grabbed Louis. He carried him the way his dad would’ve carried him- slung over his hip, his arm around Louis’ back. As they walked, Louis saw open space with lots of rolling hills, rocks and fences. There was a stone cottage nestled close by, on the side of a hill. They passed it and walked into the fields behind, eventually stopping after a few hundred feet. There, Louis could see a hole in the ground. Stairs led the way down from the field into the earth. They descended and the man unlocked a door, and they stepped into a tiny alcove where there was another locked door.

Behind it was a tiny house. There was a kitchen and a sitting room and in the back a miniscule bathroom. To the right were bedrooms, both small and with only holes in the walls instead of doors. The man walked to the back corner and sat Louis on a bed. There was nothing else in the room besides a wooden dresser holding three white wicker baskets. 

“This is where you sleep,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

Louis nodded. 

The man walked out to the kitchen. He came back moments later with a cup of apple juice and a ham sandwich in cling wrap. He sat next to Louis on the bed and offered the food. Hesitantly, Louis took it. He held it in his hands and wondering what to do. He was so hungry his tummy felt sick, but this man was still a stranger.

“Are you not gonna eat it, then?” 

Louis didn’t look at him. He started at the drink and the food. “You’re a stranger. Mummy said not to trust strangers.”

The man sighed. “My name’s… William. And I’m not a stranger. I’ll be taking care of you from now on. So… you should eat that. I’m going to go out for a while.”

“Okay. Can I come with you?”

William made a sound like a choking laugh. “No. You have to stay here. I’ll come back when I’m done what I need to do.” He paused. “Uh… what’s your name?”

Louis mumbled it to his shoes.

William didn’t look at Louis when he left. He just walked out the door. It shut quietly, the lock clicked, and that was the beginning of Louis’ solitude. 

\--

Louis isn’t sure how long he made it in the room before he started to realize it wasn’t a temporary situation.

The days were long, and there was no way to tell if it was dark or light out. He was never quite positive of when he should have been asleep or awake and there were no windows to guide him. The room was cold and damp and he spent a lot of time curled up in the bed beneath the covers shivering and crying. He wanted his mum, and to hold Lottie, and maybe ride his bike or eat some chocolate ice cream. 

In those early days, William would come to see him every day, or at least what Louis thought to be every day. He would bring him food twice each time, normally a boiled egg, toast and a glass of milk and then many hours later a meat sandwich. Louis was so hungry during that time. His tummy was always rumbling and sometimes it kept him from sleeping. The light in the room was always on, constantly casting a dim and sometimes flickering glow over him.

One day when William brought the second round of food, Louis scarfed it down so fast he nearly choked. “Whoa, kid, slow down,” his captor said. “You that hungry?”

Louis started to cry. “I wanna go home now, please,” he sniffled. “I want my mum.”

“You’re home now, Louis. This is where you live, with me.”

The tears rolled harder. “I want my mum! I want my mummy right now!” He started to scream and stomp his little feet on the laminate flooring, his fists balling up as his face reddened. The more he yelled, the better he felt. He was confused and afraid, cold and dirty and so, so hungry. There were too many feelings and his mum wasn’t there to help him.

And then, suddenly, a new feeling. 

Pain.

William had grabbed his flailing arms, snapping him upright so fast that Louis’ head flew backwards onto his own shoulders. He was so shocked that he stopped crying. William had lifted him off the floor with his arms pinioned to his sides. “Shut up!” He threw Louis back onto the bed so hard the headboard smacked into the concrete wall behind it. “I built you this place to live in, I bring you food and I don’t ask you for anything. Don’t ever cry to me again, you ungrateful little shit.” William’s forehead was veiny and there was spit collecting at the corners of his lips. “Now you’re gonna learn a lesson about appreciating what I do for you.” He whirled around and exited the tiny bedroom, stomping angrily across the room until Louis could hear the inner door open.

Then the room plunged into darkness. The door slammed shut. 

Louis screamed.

\--

The darkness lasted forever. 

Louis lay huddled beneath the covers of his bed for as long as he could. He was too afraid to move, terrified of what may have been waiting for him in the dark. It was only when the ache of needing to pee became unbearable that he threw back the covers and waddled in the direction of the toilet, his mum’s voice ringing in his ears. “You’re a big boy now, Lou. Big boys use the potty all by themselves! You don’t want to need a teacher to help you wee at school, do you?” 

After he managed to go, he found his way back into his room, the bed still warm from his body. Curling up into himself again, and ignoring the constant pangs of hunger shooting through his tummy, he managed to fall asleep.

In his dreams, tall men without faces chased him through the places he loved: the swings at the park by his house, his schoolyard, even into his house. He would try to run, but his legs stuck to the ground. He couldn’t move as they approached. He looked past one and saw his mum. He screamed out, but she turned her back to him.

He was so alone.

\--

The telly came on the same day that the lights were switched back on.

Louis awoke when he heard the sound of the door opening. He had been in his bed for the entirety of the blackout. 

William strolled into the bedroom holding a small box beneath his arm. He smiled winningly at Louis as he plunked said box onto the dresser and began to open it. “I brought you something,” he said, and pulled the tiny electronic from the box. It was black television, about a foot square. William plugged it into the wall outlet and turned it on. The picture was grainy, but Louis knew what it was- his favourite cartoon. He wanted to move closer to see better, but he was scared. The last time he had seen the man, Louis had ended up being thrown by him. He didn’t want it to happen again. It was too scary.

But William seemed kinder. He had, after all, brought Louis a gift. Didn’t that mean he wasn’t so bad?

“Do you like this show?”

Louis startled. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I watched it on the weekends in the morning sometimes.”

William smiled at him. “Are you hungry?”

Louis nodded his head violently. His tummy hurt all the time, and sometimes he felt like he wanted to throw up. But he never did. There was nothing in there to get rid of.

William took Louis by the hand and together they walked into the kitchen. On the worktop by the basin was a plate piled high with sausages, peas and mash. Louis stared at it. There were little curls of steam rising from the meal, and his stomach growled loudly. William grabbed the plate in one hand, his other still encompassing Louis’, and walked them over to the couch and little wooden coffee table with chairs. He set the plate down gently and gave Louis a spoon. “Go ahead,” he said. “That’s all yours. Eat as much as you’d like.”

Louis ate like a savage. The spoon had hardly touched his lips before the mash was inhaled and he dug back in for more. Peas rolled wildly off the plate and onto the table; potatoes were smudged across Louis’ chin and mouth. He only paused when he went to get a sausage. He looked at William questioningly- how was he meant to eat sausages with a spoon?- but the man chuckled and said, “Just use your hands.”

A tiny part of Louis was gleeful. His mum never let him use his hands to eat with. He grabbed at a sausage and munched bites off with gusto, over and over. William walked to the kitchen and returned with a box of orange juice. He gave it to Louis, but Louis said, “I don’t know how,” so the older man unwrapped the plastic and stabbed the foil tab with the straw for him. Louis greedily sucked the juice down in a few mighty sips until there was nothing left. Having devoured all that was offered to him, he sat back on the couch, his tummy finally full.

It was a little too full. Suddenly he knew he was about to be sick. He retched a tiny bit, and instantly William had him in his arms and was running to the toilet. He placed Louis gently in front of the bowl as Louis heaved into it. When he was finished, all that had been his lunch was deposited in the porcelain. He started to cry.

William patted his back softly, if a little awkwardly. It was nothing like Louis’ mum’s back rubs; the ones that made him feel better right away. Hers were all smooth, broad strokes, never ceasing, and sometimes she would even bring her hands up to pet lightly through his hair and scratch gently at his temples. William’s touches were hesitant and fleeting. “It’s alright,” he said, “you just ate too quickly. I brought more food, I can just make something else.”

He held Louis over the sink while Louis drank from beneath the tap, washing the sick taste from his mouth. The pair went back out to the kitchen and William stopped near the fridge. “I guess I should bring you some toiletries,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “Maybe some more clothes, you’ve been in those ones a while. And food so you can eat when you’re hungry.” He looked at Louis strangely, as if just realizing he was there. “Can you make food for yourself? Do you know how to brush your teeth?”

“ I’m four, I’m a big boy. ‘m not a baby.”

William was still looking at him oddly. “Okay. I’m going to make you some toast and then I’m going to go out again. But I’ll be back later.”

“Can you leave the lights on? The dark is too scary.”

The man contemplated the tiny figure in front of him: only a few feet tall, skinny but round in his face and waist; dirty little face and hands; grimy clothes and no socks to be seen on his feet. He looked a little street waif, and William didn’t like it. He liked boys who were taken care of, clean and soft, warm and affectionate. Louis wasn’t any of that. “Yeah, I’ll leave the lights on this time. Don’t worry.” He left with his head full of things that needed to be done, errands he would have to do. Ways he would have to mould the small boy into exactly what he liked.

It was only the beginning.


End file.
